Today people divide Christ into aspects such as "historical," "cosmic," "mystical" and so on. But Christ in his essence is one and indivisible.

There is only one Christ - the living Christ who is the manifestation of God, the manifestation of Love.

Christ is God revealing Himself to the world.

As a manifestation of God, Christ cannot be separated from Him, cannot be considered apart from Him.

And when I speak of Christ, I do not mean an abstract principle, but rather an actual incarnation of Love.

Love is the greatest reality and not an abstraction. It has form, content and meaning.

Christ - whatever conception people have of him as "historical," as "cosmic," as "mystical," - gave to the earth the fullest expression of Love.

This is because as an historic personality, as a cosmic essence, and as a mystical experience, Christ is and remains the most perfect expression of Love.

Indeed, no other man on earth before Christ had greater love than His.

There is neither in the cosmos without, nor in the mystic depths of the soul within, a fuller expression of Love than that which we personify in Christ.

Therefore, how are the words "historical," "cosmic," and "mystical" to be understood?

Manifested on the earth at a certain historical moment as the ideal man, as an example of the real man, Christ is "historical." And the times in which he lived record an bear witness to Him: "Behold, the man! Behold, the true man in whom Love, Wisdom, and Truth live, and who applies them."

When he is experienced in the inward depths, he is "mystical," and when he is comprehended and known as God manifested in the world, he is "cosmic."

The physical side of Christ is all of humanity united in one body. All human souls in which Christ lives, united into one - this is the physical aspect of Christ.

All angels, gathered into the heart of Christ, represent his spiritual aspect.

And all divine beings, united in the mind of Christ, are his divine aspect.

This is the "cosmic" Christ, God manifested in the world.

That is why the mystic sees Christ everywhere - as the great Brother of humanity, the archetype of man, the First-Born in the world, the beginning of the human race, the beginning of human evolution. The First-Born who developed and manifested all divine virtues, who applied all divine laws.

The mystic sees Christ as the First-Born who passed every trial and sacrificed all for his brothers.

Mountains, fields, springs, rivers, and seas, with all the natural wealth hidden therein - all this is an expression of this Great Brother.

But this is a great mystery, for the understanding of which thousands of years of unremitting work are necessary.

Thus does one need to conceive of Christ in his comprehensiveness.

He is One, although people consider him sometimes as "historical," sometimes as "cosmic," or as "mystical."

All these words must come to life in the true understanding of Christ as the manifested and revealed Love of God; they must not remain dry concepts, prisons for human thought.

Indeed, is not the "historical" Christ, who came to earth two thousand years ago, a prison for the minds of many Christians? Where in the Scripture did Christ two thousand years ago speak of himself as of an historical personality? He speaks of himself as Spirit, as one who will remain on earth "to the end of the ages," that is until the epoch of violence and evil, now in its last days, comes to an end.

"Go and preach," he says to his disciples, "and I shall be with you to the end of the ages."

One of the worst delusions is to think that Christ is in heaven, that he sits and waits for the Last Judgment, when he will begin to judge the living and the dead.

The truth is that Christ has never left the earth. Remember his words: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."

Christ is he Who has inspired, is inspiring, and will inspire the "historical," "cosmic," and "mystical" life of the earth and humanity.

Without Christ, there could be no history.

Without Christ, there could be no "cosmos," no organized and established world.

Without Christ, there could be no "mystical" life.

He is the great inspirer of all revelations in all times. He is the unseen moving force behind the whole spiritual life of humanity.

The Scripture, in which Christ is the central figure, is a witness to this.

Christ himself hints at this with the words: "Moses and the prophets wrote about me."

Moses, in a general sense, comprises all the spiritual leaders of humanity, all scientists, philosophers, writers, poets, artists and musicians who prepare the minds of men for the understanding of Christ, the divine Truth.

However transitory their works seem, however changeable their theories, they are not arbitrary; they are created under the influence of a universal law of the Spirit, working in mankind in a special way.

All those men, therefore, worked for the manifold upliftment of humanity; they prepared the way for the coming of Christ.

It is not easy for a great Spirit such as Christ to come among men. Men had to work hard in the course of several thousand years in order that Christ might appear among them. It is not easy to come to the earth.

But with his descent to the earth, Christ opened a new epoch in the evolution of humanity. He indicated the only way by which the human soul can ascend to God.

This is why he said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

The Way: in the broadest sense of the word, this is the movement of the Spirit towards an intelligent application of the laws of Nature.

The Life: this is the harmonious organization of the elements and the development of the forces in the Divine soul.

The Truth: this is the manifestation of the One God, who creates the conditions for the development of all living beings.

Coming from the Divine world of Truth and descending to the material world, Christ connects human souls to the world of Truth, where the great aims of every life are hidden.

There must necessarily be a link to unite human souls sunken in matter, with God. Only Christ can form that link - only Christ can unite men with God.

He came down from the Divine world, bringing life from the world of Truth, and ascended back to it, and in this way he indicated the path leading from temporal life to the eternal.

"And this is life eternal," says Christ, "that they should know Thee the only true God, and him who Thou didst send Jesus Christ."

To know God is to know the seeds of the Spirit - the conditions, the powers, and the laws which sustain it, and according to which this wonderful order of things is built.

And Christ is the intelligent beginning who comes from the One God, bringing life to all beings, guiding them and sustaining them, and linking them to the initial center of all that is.

Christ is the way of this intelligent movement of souls which leads them to life eternal in Truth.

And when Christ is asked why he came to earth, he replies, "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the Truth."

These words, however, are a mathematical formula. The question of the coming of Christ is one of the deepest questions in human life. Many people think that it is very easy to reply to this question. They say that Christ came to the earth in order to suffer and to save humanity.

The coming of Christ to the earth is not a matter of suffering. The suffering was a secondary occurrence in the life of Christ - it is far from determining this very important moment in the history of humanity.

Salvation, in the way in which it is usually understood, is also a partial conception of this great event.

But today, all the preachers say that Christ came to the earth to save humanity. If Christ had saved the world in such a mechanical way as people believe, and if they were truly saved, then they would not live in a way so contrary to the spirit of Christ's teaching.

Clearly, the idea of salvation has an entirely different meaning. It is not where people look for it, nor does it come mechanically as they think.

Christ brought to the earth the science of the soul. He pointed out the path by which human souls can know God and obtain eternal life.

The gate of that path is Love. He who passes through this gate will find himself on that royal road where great deeds await him.

Many great souls came to the earth before Christ, but they were unable to cope with the difficult task of uplifting humanity. Christ had to come to earth in order to solve this essential and very important problem, and to show to men a proven way by which they, too, might solve it.

Before Christ, God sent into his field his servants - the prophets and the saints - but they were not able to accomplish the task in the way in which it should have been done.

When Christ, "the Son of God," came to the earth, the workers of all of heaven united in his name in order to complete the work which had been begun.

It is written in the Gospel that "God so loved the world that he gave his only- begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but should have eternal life."

The Son is the Word, the Rational, the Divine, the only one who could restore harmony to the world and the connection of the human soul with God.

Christ could restore that connection, he could influence humanity as a whole, because he himself was connected with the great, mighty One.

When the Gospel speaks of the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus, it refers to the union of Jesus with the collective Spirit of the world of reason, whereby the realization of a Divine idea became possible on the earth.

This is a law on the earth - in order to accomplish the work of God, a man on the earth must unite with a being in heaven. In this case, the being was the collective divine Spirit.

From this point of view, Christ is a collective spirit. He exists as a unit and at the same time he is a collective spirit. He is the sum total of all Sons of God whose hearts and souls are fountains of life and love.

All Sons of God, united in one, all intelligent souls who live in Divine communion - all this is Christ.

The descent of Christ to the earth is the most important event in the history of humanity. It is a unique event in its content and meaning. The fundamental idea of human life is connected with it - the idea of immortality, the idea of eternal life. And the efforts of all human existence have as their ultimate goal the attaining of immortality and entering into eternal life.

"And this is life eternal," says Christ, "that they should know Thee, the only true God, and him whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ."

Know God, and know Christ.

Did people know Christ when he appeared two thousand years ago? Do they know him today? When truth comes into the world, it is not clothed in royal garments, but rather in modest apparel.

Thus Christ appeared two thousand years ago in a simple form, in which men could not recognize him. But such are the laws of this world.

In this modest apparel, seemingly a man like all other men, even his disciples did not know Him completely. Only three of them at the transfiguration saw Christ's "face," His inner self. In this inner light they saw Him and recognized Him as he was among the angels.

For the Jews, Christ was "the son of Joseph, the son of the carpenter." For the scribes and the Pharisees, He was a blasphemer, a self-styled messiah who called himself "Son of God." He did not come from among them, He was not taught by them.

Where, in fact, did Christ study? Everything that he did testified to his wide learning. Yet, even today there are people who think that Christ was a common, uneducated person. This is not true. Christ himself, addressing his listeners, said, "If I told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" When He spoke of "heavenly things," Christ referred to the great mysteries of the sun. However, He understood "earthly things" as well - He knew the Cabal, and the philosophies of the Eastern nations and of the Greeks, as well as the sciences of the time.

Indeed, Christ had no need to study in human schools. His entire earthly life was in itself objective learning for Him.

His life was a source of new experience, a field for the application of those sublime principles and great laws, whose functions He had known in the invisible world. Due to his awakened consciousness and his connection with the invisible world, Christ was always able to obtain knowledge directly therefrom.

And when He prayed, prayer was a conversation with the world of reason.

Through prayer, Christ communicated with the invisible world, with all the hierarchies there and with God. Through prayer the invisible world revealed to Christ that great lesson which He had to learn on earth, and disclosed to him the problem He had to solve in the environment of earthly life.

After having solved his difficult problem, Christ understood through experience that the only way to save humanity is through Love. Only then did He fully comprehend the profound meaning of all of his suffering.

However, to men, regardless of what they say, the sufferings of Christ, his crucifixion and his disgraceful death, still remain one of the deepest mysteries.

Why did Christ, the greatest soul that ever came to the earth, the greatest character ever manifested, why did this good, intelligent, and strong man have to undergo such a tragic death?

The Scripture says that it was thus "written" - and nothing more.

Others maintain that it was necessary for this to happen so that the world might be saved.

But Christ himself says that He came into the world to bear witness to the Truth.

One thing can be said with certainty - Christ was crucified because Love did not outwardly participate in his life. And where Love does not participate, the most severe sufferings and the greatest tragedies occur. Love does not cause them, but the competition for love creates them. Love in itself always and everywhere brings light, peace and joy.

In any case, we see that Christ's crucifixion was permitted.

On the cross Christ underwent what might be called ideological-mystical suffering, the deepest and the most intense suffering which a human soul can undergo.

He had to drink from the cup of suffering to the last drop - that cup into which were gathered all the bitter dregs of the past.

But during this profound and intensified suffering, all of the secrets of the past were disclosed to him. And conscious of the great importance of the moment, after the inner struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, Christ said, "It was for this hour that I came."

Through the great alchemy of Love, Christ converted the poisons gathered in that cup, and thus destroyed violence forever.

And indeed could not Christ - a strong man of genius who knew his high origin, who foresaw everything, who knew what was about to happen - have averted the sufferings which awaited Him? He had the choice either to call forth the "legions of angels" and with their help to annihilate both the Jewish nation and the Roman Empire - that is, to use the method of the past, Moses and Elijah's method of violence and the sword, which was the method of the old magi and adepts - or to accept the cup and the cross and to overcome them through the power of Love.

Christ chose the second, a unique experiment on earth.

And indeed, if Christ had feared the suffering, if He had eared the cross on which later He was crucified, or the nails with which He was nailed to it, or the spear with which He was pierced, He would not have provided a new and essential solution to the difficult task of uplifting the human soul. He dissolved the insults, and the lashes of the whip, and the cross, and the nails, and the spear, with the fire of Love - the only fire that can melt the weapons of violence. The experiment proved successful.

Thus Christ solved a problem upon which the future of all of humanity depended. Thus He opened the path of salvation to those suffering souls for whom He came.

For those simple but noble souls who had the courage to put their faith in Him, and not for the learned, the powerful and the religious people of His age, did Christ lay down His life so that they might live in the Love which He gave them.

Something very great is hidden in the sufferings of Christ. They constitute the hidden side of Christ's life, of which men know nothing.

And when I speak of the sufferings of Christ, two great virtues of Christ come to mind - His unprecedented patience, and His humility. Through these, He endured all the abuses, insults and offenses which men inflicted upon Him. Christ endured all of these and remained silent, calm and unmoved, as though nothing were happening. Not a tear fell from His eyes.

This is great patience, this is self-mastery, this is Love.

This is a rock which nothing can shatter.

Christ's crucifixion was a tragedy, but this tragedy had its solution in the resurrection.

Christ rose from the dead, and through his resurrection He conquered death. And as in his sufferings the secrets of the past were revealed to Him so in the resurrection He received the revelation of the future.

Christ is truly a strong man, a mighty spirit, a hero. He overcame everything - tortures, the cross and the grave.

Christ did not carry the wooden cross to the end. He carried it only to a certain place and then He laid it on the ground. People think that He laid it down because He was exhausted beneath its weight.

Christ was not a weakling. He could have carried the cross, but He laid it down in order to point out to humanity what was in store for them. He implied, "I can carry the cross of the sufferings of living men, but I do not wish to carry a wooden cross."

But present-day Christians still carry and kiss the wooden cross, disdained by Christ himself.

Having cast the wooden cross upon the ground, Christ stood up, and upright he made his way to Golgotha. They nailed him to the cross. But He did not remain there long. He alone unnailed himself. How? He left his body and went to Joseph of Arimathea.

Christ was buried and His tomb was sealed. But He also left the tomb. He did not want to leave his body in the tomb, because it was alive. He himself resurrected it.

The angel that caused his death took his soul to hell, but Christ did not remain there long. His entrance into hell caused a revolution - He activated all of hell's inhabitants and set them free. Do not think that after his resurrection Christ was alone - in hell He was the leader of a host of angels who emptied hell of all of its prisoners.

Thus Christ proved that the strong man cannot remain nailed to a cross, nor can he be sealed in a grave. The strong man never dies - he is resurrected and he gives life to others.

Christ was the heart of God, and that is why He resurrected. God's heart cannot die. It returned whence it came. But throughout all of this tragedy enacted on Golgotha, new blood was infused into the exhausted veins of humanity, and a new impulse was brought to the divine circulation of life.

When He came to the earth two thousand years ago, Christ revealed to us only one side of his nature.

We see Christ then in humiliation and grief, in sufferings and trials. We see him as a hero of redemption.

People do not yet know Christ in his glory, in his divine might and power.

Christ is strong and mighty now!

In the past, the hands of Christ were nailed. Today no one can nail these hands - the nails would be melted at once! In the past they crucified Christ, but today there is not a tree large enough on which He could be crucified.

Christ cannot be crucified a second time.

This Christ is coming now to visit the minds and hearts of men. He will demolish all prisons; He will obliterate all false teachings - everything that destroys man's mind and heart, that brings confusion and anarchy, that paralyzes human life. He is the living Christ who brings life, light and freedom to all souls, who uplifts and awakens in them love toward all.

When I say that Christ is coming now, some might think that He will come outwardly. Christ will not come outwardly, He will come neither in the form of a man, nor in any other form.

When the rays of the sun enter into your homes, does that mean that the sun itself has visited you?

Remember, Christ is e manifestation of divine Love. And He will come as an inner light in the minds and hearts of men. This light will draw all toward Christ as around a great center.

The opening of men's minds and hearts, and the inner acceptance of Christ - this will be the second coming of Christ to the earth.

If they do not accept Him in this way, people will continue to live without love, in suffering and misery, in outer beliefs, superstitions, and delusions.

Captives of those outer beliefs, many religious people today err when they say, "Christ brought good tidings two thousand years ago. He said all that He had to say, and now He has gone to heaven, where He will remain until the Day of Judgment, when He will come again to judge the living and the dead."

But I say to you: Christ did not preach the good tidings in time and space!

We do not consider Christ and His teaching as something that is past.

We do not consider Christ and His teaching as something that will come in the future.

For us, Christ and His teaching are an everlasting present!

Therefore, it was not only during his three years of reaching that Christ spoke to us; He has not ceased speaking during all of these two thousand years. And if it were possible to restore all that He said in those three years to the people of that time, and if it were possible also to restore what He said in the course of these two thousand years, men would have very valuable knowledge.

But only very little of what Christ said during those three years of preaching has come down to us - only fragments. Many of the Epistles of Paul, as well as of the other apostles, remain hidden from the world. But some day they will come to light. Even now they are being disclosed, but only to advanced pupils.

On the other hand, do you think that Christ divulged all of his teaching? In comparison with what He possessed, Christ gave very little to his contemporaries. The men of that time were not ready for science. Therefore, He spoke to them in parables. Christ did not want to put his weapon in the hands of the ignorant, so that they might turn it against Him.

Do you think that if Christ came now He would speak as He spoke two thousand years ago? Christ will speak today in an entirely different manner.

First of all, He will preach about the great science of Love, and the methods of its application. He will preach about the path of pupilage, brotherhood and service. The law of evolution requires it today.

And now the Great Master addresses himself to all awakened souls, proclaiming to them the fundamentals of the new gospel:

That all be diligent pupils,

good brothers, true and loyal servers!

Only those who are diligent pupils, good brothers, and true servers can create the new culture in which Christ will live in every man and among all people.

Today, Christ has no need of ordinary believers, religious people who fight one another, nor of rulers and priests, but rather of real men, creators of the new - pupils, brothers, and servers.
Today Christ does not want men who constantly crucify Him within themselves, but men who will welcome Him to live within them and among them, who will be one with Him.

Today, Christ proclaims a culture without crucifixions, the culture of resurrection!

We nave seen well the results of the present culture created by those who crucified Christ.

It is time for the foundations of a new culture to be laid, a culture built not by people who worship the crucified Christ, but by men-brothers in whom lives the resurrected Christ, the living Christ of Love.

The foundation of this culture will be Love.

Love is the only power that can make of men diligent pupils, good brothers, true and loyal servers, builders of the new life.

This is the "new" which Christ brings to humanity today.

This is the Word of the Great White Brotherhood; this is what the Master speaks.

And will not many believers, then, who call themselves Christians, be enticed by His word? And will they recognize Him?

They will continue to argue about the "crucified," the "historical" and the "cosmic" Christ; about the Christ as He is considered by the various churches, and the spirit of his Living Word will remain strange to them.

Therefore, I say to you: Leave aside these definitions and differentiations of Christ! Know that there is only one Christ, the Christ of great Love, who at present is active in the world and in the souls of men.

I speak to you of that Christ, and not of the "historical" or the "crucified" Christ. Men know Him well as an historical personage, but they do not know Him as Living Love.

I speak to you of the living Christ, of that Christ who has life within himself, who brings the living knowledge and light, who brings the truth and freedom; of that Christ who teaches all methods for the building of rational life.

He is the great Christ, who is called the Head of the Great Universal Brotherhood.

All great souls know Him, and they never argue about who and what He is, what He was, where He is now, what place He holds in the "hierarchy of masters," and so on.

They never argue because they know very well what place Christ has in the Whole, just as they know the place of the other great men who have appeared and are appearing in the world.

This is the Christ that men must come to know today! They must see Him - see and know Him! Many men wish to convince us that we may be true Christians without seeing and knowing Christ inwardly. But I maintain that if a man does not see Christ, nothing will come of him.

In order to see Christ, one must have a mind, a heart, a soul, and a spirit like His. All those to whom Christ appeared before they reached that stage, fell down with faces toward the ground. And what can a fallen man see?

Man must drink from the source itself and not from the river, which is muddy because many other additives entered into it.

Follow the path that leads to this source - the path is difficult and long, but you will drink living water from the spring itself, and it will refresh your mind and heart forever.

Spacious views, unseen until then, will be opened to your sight.

On that mountain where the living water flows forth, you will hear the voice of God.

Do not ask to remain there, but come down to your brothers. Come down and put into practice, like a pupil, like a brother, and like a server, the Living Word of your Heavenly Father who draws you to Him by the threads of His Love.